"lifting your feet" is fine advice, as long as it's not combined with the cryptic "don't push off." Then it gives the impression that you can run entirely by moving your recovering leg forward. The only value I see in that is making sure newbies don't go too fast, by giving them a method where going fast is impossible.
Lifting Your Feet?
- Thread starter Last Place Jason
- Start date
Good points, kozz. I know far too many people that believe you can propel yourself forward without applying any downward force with the foot on the ground.
This summer I swam for 20-30 feet off our dock--that's about my limit. Can I now speak for the swimming community?
That's what I mean when I question the conceptual capacities of some in the barefoot running world. Some people also believe all human bodies (tall, short, long-limbed, short-limbed) have a cadence that harmonizes around a single, surprisingly round number at all paces. But that's another can of worms . . .
I would even question the value of not letting beginners go (relatively) fast. One of the reasons elite runners do speedwork is to sharpen their mechanics.
This summer I swam for 20-30 feet off our dock--that's about my limit. Can I now speak for the swimming community?
Remember I said I can't speak for the whole bf community, you can do as you please though.
I would agree. Beginners should keep speed to only short periodic reps when getting started.
Good to hear from an experienced and elite runner like you agree B&A. I asked my nephew to run faster so that he could get a feel for it and to see if his form/posture improved a bit. I think it did. But I would never ask him to run (relatively) fast for more than 50-100 yards until his body has adapted more.
Jason's probably including me in this group (maybe Ken Bob?). I tell newcomers to not push off, so they know not to dig in and twist and shear. I'm not saying there will be no downward force at all. Of course there will. And I say lift the feet so they can think about how that will help them to not push off.
Jason, I absolutely don't doubt that the glutes and hammies are key to running. What I am questioning is whether or not they are the primary contrubutors at the stage in the cycle that is most resposible for forward propulsion. It's just my own curiosity to know what the actual truth is. I find the science part of running gait fascinating, if not mind-numbingly complicated, and it seems to me that some of the things going on are not intuitive. It's amazing to me that we can put a man on the moon and invent twinkies but not agree on what muscles are doing what in human running. I suspect that differences in gait mechanics between natural barefoot style and foot-coffin-shod running have been sorely overlooked in past research (some of the studies even blatantly refer to the "heel strike"...yikes). I know for me, having transitioned to BFR, it certainly feels like I am using my glutes a lot more than I was before. It would be nice, however, to see at least one or two studies (better yet studies of barefoot runners) that reasonably establish the notion that the glutes and hammies are the primary contributors to forward propulsion, not because it would change how I run or what I think good running form is, but just to know the science part of it.
Lastly, just so you know a little more about where I am coming from, part of my job for the last 15 years has been advising companies on the validity of their marketing claims based on scientific substantiation. I don't think that makes me smarter than anybody else on this board or right all the time, but just that pouring over studies in an effort to extract truths is part of what I do.
As I've said before you are a saint! So thanks for your time engaging me in this dialogue.
BR
Ok, please can someone explain to me, really clearly & slowly & not using too many big words, what the difference is between the bad pushing off & the necessary to run fast pushing off & how you tell? I run on sand & have always strived not to push off & measured it by checking my footprints were flat (I'd dig out big holes with my toes when I first started, guess that'd have hurt on tarmac). Is it different because I'm running on a soft surface so the amount of energy absorbed into the ground is going to be greater, with less available for me to make use of?
Rod, check this one out. I've heard Lieberman talk about this several times:
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/209/11/2143.short
I'm getting ready for a clinic and don't have time to search for more. When I get more time, I'll look through the full text of this and follow the previous research on the topic.
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/209/11/2143.short
I'm getting ready for a clinic and don't have time to search for more. When I get more time, I'll look through the full text of this and follow the previous research on the topic.
Shadows- some degree of "pushing off' is needed to move you forward. I suspect the ideal amount of push off could be measured by the time the foot stays on the ground. Too little time decreases efficiency, too much requires the calf to plantarflex the foot (causing those divots). The goal is to find the happy medium.
Or something like that.
Or something like that.
So when you're doing it right is the force applied further back, through the ball of the foot, rather than through the toes/front edge of the ball? (I'm assuming that as I move forward without injury to myself or the ground that I can't be doing too badly, am just intrigued.)
BBR, be sure to check out The Science of Running website. The biomechanics of running are explained pretty well there. I think you'll find that there's no reason to distinguish between proper shod and proper barefoot running mechanics. The shod elites, especially the sprinters, have the same conception of 'natural' form as barefooters do, and have been studying this stuff for a while now, both through research and training. If you want to see someone obsess about this stuff even further, don't miss Canute's Efficient Running Site: http://canute1.wordpress.com/. He's another one of us.
